Lodgers a
Necessity
High rents among the colored people, as everywhere else, force the families to take in lodgers. Nearly one-third of the population in the district investigated on the South Side and nearly one-seventh of the population in the district investigated on the West Side were lodgers. While this practice is always found dangerous to family life, it is particularly so to the boys and girls of colored families, who are often obliged to live near the vice districts. To quote from the report, “The history of the social evil in Chicago is intimately connected with the colored population. Invariably the larger vice districts have been created within or near the settlements of colored people. In the past history of the city nearly every time a new vice district was created downtown or on the South Side, the colored families within the district moved in just ahead of the prostitutes.”
Difficulties of
Buying
Property
When it becomes possible for the colored people of a better class to buy property in a good neighborhood, so that they may take care of their children and live respectably, there are often protest meetings among the white people in the vicinity and sometimes even riots. A striking example of the latter occurred within the past three years on the West Side of Chicago; a colored woman bought a lot near a small park, upon which she built a cottage. It was not until she moved into the completed house that the neighbors discovered that a colored family had acquired property there. They immediately began a crusade of insults and threats. When this brought no results, a “night raid” company was organized. In the middle of the night a masked band broke into the house; told the family to keep quiet or they would be murdered; then they tore down the newly built house, destroying everything in it. This is, of course, an extreme instance, but there have been many similar to it. Quite recently at Wilmette, a suburb of Chicago, animosity against negro residents resulted in the organization of an anti-negro committee which requested the dismissal of all negroes who were employed in the town as gardeners, janitors, etc., because the necessity of housing their families depressed real estate values.
Housing of the
Well-to-Do
Colored People
The Juvenile Protective Association, as a supplement to the previous housing investigations, studied the conditions of fifty of the better homes occupied by the colored people of Chicago. Those in the so-called “black belt” in the city; those in a suburban district, and other houses situated in blocks in which only one or two colored families lived. The size of the houses varied from five to fourteen rooms, averaging eight rooms each; the conditions of the houses inside and out compared favorably with similar houses occupied by white families. Classified according to occupation, the heads of the household in nine cases were railroad porters, the next largest number were janitors, then waiters, and among them were found lawyers, physicians and clergymen. In only four instances was the woman of the house working outside the home. Only four of the homes took in lodgers, and children were found in only fifteen of the fifty families studied. The total of thirty-three children found in the fifty homes averages but two-thirds of a child for each family and but for one family—a janitor living in a ten-room house and having eight children—the average would have been but half a child for a family; confirming the statement often made that while the poorer colored people in the agricultural districts of the South, like the poor Italians in rural Italy, have very large families, when they move to the city and become more prosperous, the birth rate among colored people falls below that of the average prosperous American family.
From the homes situated in white neighborhoods, only two reported “indignation meetings when they moved in” and added “quiet now”; one other reported “no affiliation with white neighbors”; still another, “white neighbors visit in time of sickness,” and the third was able to say “neighbors friendly.” Of the ownership of the fifty homes, thirty-five were owned by colored men, twelve by white landlords and the ownership of three was not ascertained. Thirty-four of the houses were occupied by their owners.
Few Prosperous
Colored Men
Born in Chicago
In addition to the fifty families living in comfortable houses, one hundred more cases of fairly prosperous colored families were investigated. It was found that only six of the heads of these families had been born in Chicago, that seventy-seven had come from the South. All of the southern states were represented. Twenty-four of the men were from Kentucky and nineteen from Tennessee. Only six of the ninety-two men born outside of the state had been brought to Chicago as children, while seventy-one of the number had come to the city between the ages of sixteen and twenty-six. They, as well as the older men, had come hoping for better conditions, their reasons being variously put as “higher wages,” “learning a trade,” “to get a home,” “to make big money,” “to get a position,” “for more freedom,” “for more schooling,” etc., although in nineteen cases the reason given was curiosity, an attempt doubtless to formulate the desire for adventure.
Prosperity
Does Not Remove
Race
Prejudice